Branding for service companies

We all have a story about when we have felt let down by a company – twitter is littered with examples of good and bad customer service, and initial problems that when dealt with well, are considered good customer service. More often than not, for service companies it’s these critiques that shape the way customers see the brand. In service companies the brand (more or less) is made up of the people it employs.

Many companies have adopted taglines that could be considered over optimistic, such as FedEx’s early slogan “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”, and which it’s ‘people’ may find hard to fulfil. Positive, and sometimes idealistic messages are incredible, but only when the gap between ideal and achievable can be met a large percentage of the time!

Avis is a great example of this, at the time their slogan “We try harder” was implemented they were the underdog – when you are only no.2, your try harder. Or else. After implementation rentals increased by 30%.

a dozen eggs recently carried out some design work for a cafe in town, they were in the pilot stages (before the swanky coffee machine had been plumbed in) and therefore we wanted to ensure all design work produced within this stage didn’t promise anything it couldn’t deliver. We used images of standard mugs of coffee rather than artisan espresso, and slowly introduced different imagery once the pilot stage was over.

Branding for service companies

Branding for service companies can be a slower process, keeping the goals in sight, but ensuring an element of trust is always maintained. In the age of internet shopping we would be annoyed if our ‘next day’ delivery didn’t arrive on time, but wouldn’t bat an eyelid if we’d paid for 2nd class post.